Of haunting, hanging and homophobia

In October 1634, Susan Leakey, a widow, died in her son Alexander's house on the quayside at Minehead, Somerset, with Alexander's young wife, Elizabeth, in attendance. Relations between Elizabeth and her mother-in-law had been strained, and Susan had threatened, shortly before, to come back and haunt her "in the devil's likeness" once she was dead and buried. The haunting duly began six weeks later, but consisted at first only of ghostly noises. Then a terrible thing happened. A young nephew staying with the Leakeys, and suffering from a "languishing disease", died in convulsions, crying out that his grandmother was choking him and that he could see the devil. Black marks, like the print of a hand, were found on his throat. After that Susan's ghost appeared to several local residents, including the curate of Minehead, and eventually